1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the automatic processing of products. By automatic processing is meant one or more mechanical operations performed with an industrial robot, i.e., a device having a strictly mechanical portion having an articulated mechanical structure and a system of actuators, a data processing portion having sensitive detectors, and a system for processing information that receives the signals picked up by the detectors and that gives orders to the actuators. More particularly, the invention relates to an automatic device including an industrial robot and a system for processing a product also called a working system.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The industrial robot is an automatic device which is increasingly used to perform varied processing on diversified products. There are various types of industrial robots, among which the robots with angular movements are the most widely used. In the case of processing a product requiring the following of predetermined paths, a problem encountered in the use of these industrial robots with angular movements is the impossibility of their moving along a perfectly smooth path. Actually, the robot is an articulated system and its wrist describes a series of incremental movements, each of which is shorter as the number of programming points increases. Unless an infinity of points is programmed, which is impossible, the path of the wrist of the robot cannot move along a perfectly smooth path, and except in special cases, the wrist cannot move along a continuous path parallel to the surface to be worked. It is even more difficult for it to follow a path parallel to the surface to be worked, while remaining, in addition, at a constant distance from another reference surface.